Wikipedia:Controversial articles: Difference between revisions

{{about|articles that are controversial|articles or article sections that are about controversies|WP:Criticism}}

[[Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words|Weasel words]] are a way to give unconfirmable assertions the appearance of fact. "Houston is considered the friendliest city in the world." Really, now. Who says so? Do not use expressions like "is claimed", "is thought to be", and "is alleged,", without saying specifically who is doing the claiming, thinking or alleging.

Also, beware of using words of attribution that cast aspersions on the source. This is largely an issue of context; for example,

::''Standing before the ruins of an exploded apartment building, the military spokesman claimed, that "Onlyonly military targets were hit.".''

In this contextHere, the word "claimed" suggests the credulitywriter's of the writer.doubt; "Saidsaid" would have been a more neutral choice. Also, "Allegedalleged", also, in most contextsoften suggests a statement of questionable veracitytruth.

AlthoughWhen it'syou simplerwrite tonew writecontent, andmake readit perfectly clear if a paragraphfootnote thatis hasmeant ato singlesupport footnotethe whole paragraph or only atthe last clause before the endfootnote. For example, thatstart makeswith latera editingclear harder,attribution becauselike it's"Mr. usuallySmith unclearhas whetherwritten..." theIf footnotethis wasis meantnot topossible supportand there could be any confusion about the wholesource, paragraphit oris onlybetter to have the lastsame clause.material Thatsourced resultsmore than once in the paragraph. Otherwise the subsequent editor either havinghas to retrieve the source (which may be unavailable to that editor or slow to get) or havingonly tocan estimate the previous editor's intention, and that's often erroneous. When youWhile writein newsuch content,cases thesome bettermay compromiseprefer issourcing to source each sentence and be sure the entireevery sentence, andlater noteditors justmay partfind ofthis itexcessive, shouldremove havethe thatextra sourcingreferences. ThisSentences does(and notsometimes requireparagraphs) thatmay acontain sentencemore have onlythan one source, justas thatlong as it beis clear to future editors which source supports which statement in a sentence,. and you canSee [[Wikipedia:Citing sources#Bundling citations|bundlebundling citations]] intofor more information. Later editors who find that part of a singleparagraph footnoteis not properly sourced may put a "citation needed" tag on the questionable material.

When establishing an event or action, reference should be made to a [[WP:RS|reliable source]]. Ideally, this would be ana independentdependent scholarly work, but most of us don't have access to this kind of material. For most events since 1995, and some before, Web-based news reports can be cited to establish basic facts. These should be from the mainstream media or independent organizations, taking into account that they have their biases as well.

If someone's editing is acceptable even though it's not great, leave it intact and don't risk becoming an article [[Wikipedia:Ownership of articles|owner]], which is not allowed. If editing is partly acceptable and partly not, only change what is not, even though selectivity is more complicated than reverting or undoing an entire edit. Craft a compromise that has a hope of satisfying all sides, even if the compromise is not your first choice. Make your [[Help:Edit summary|Edit Summaries]] as clear as possible and avoid criticizing editors in them. [[Help:Edit summary|Edit Summaries]] have to be short, so, if you run out of room in the Edit Summary field, expect to start a Talk topic in a few minutes and meanwhile use the Edit Summary to link to the Talk topic. Apply [[Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle|BRD]] by discussing disputes, whether you open the discussion or someone else hasdoes, which means you should check the article's talk page when it turns up in your watchlist. DevelopAllow [[Wikipedia:Consensus|consensus]] to develop then abide by the outcome even if it's not what you would like,. although anAn article consensus [[Wikipedia:Consensus#Level of consensus|cannot]] override the consensus that applies to a policy or guideline and no one should apply an article consensus insofar aswhen that would require violating a policy or guideline, nor should a [[Wikipedia:Sham consensus|sham consensus]] be followed.

* [[Wikipedia:CreatingWords controversialto contentavoid]] (essayguideline in the Manual of Style)

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